


If You Can't Do Store-Bought, Then Homemade is Fine

by OriginalCeenote



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Halloween Costumes, Celebrity Name Dropping, Clint Barton is Behaving Himself for a Change, Crack, Ficlet, Gen, Party at the Avengers Tower, Steve's Nomad Suit Complete with Titty Window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 00:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: Bucky and Sam’s beef over who has the bigger Instagram following and the better look and shtick heats up at Halloween.





	If You Can't Do Store-Bought, Then Homemade is Fine

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a Tumblr prompt rolling around that Sam and Bucky would totally troll each other by dressing up as each other for Halloween, complete with cardboard wings and a tin foil arm.

“Don’t see what’s so special about that fancy, shiny arm of yours, Barnes.”

“Are you really talkin’ shit, Wilson? With your little strap-on wings? Take those away, and what’ve you got?”

Steve watched from the edge of the kitchen door while he mixed himself a glass of chocolate milk. “What’s going on?” he asked Rhodey, who was punching open the tab on a can of Coke.

“Just your boys, enjoying their little pissing contest again. Watch your feet. Don’t step in it.”

“Why is it whenever they do anything ridiculous, they’re ‘my boys?’”

“You brought them here. That makes them your problem.” Rhodey took a generous gulp of his soda, stifled his belch, and reached for a handful of Smartie rolls in the orange, pumpkin-shaped bowl on the table.

“I didn’t technically - Bucky came here on his own!”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit. Okay,” Steve muttered. “You don’t hafta be a jerk about it, pal.”

Rhodey quirked his brow at Steve as he unwrapped the tiny, chalky sour candies. “He’s _your_ friend.”

Steve sighed and put away the bottle of Hershey’s syrup. He tried and failed to ignore his partner and his best friend bickering for what had to be the third time that afternoon alone.

“Did you just ask me what I’ve got without my EXO kit?”

“Why? You losin’ your hearing now, too? Let me go get Stevie’s old hearing aid. Hey! Steve! Give Sammy your old hearing aid, he sounds like he needs it!” 

“Fuck you, old man.”

“Who you calling ‘old man,’ old man? I’m not even forty, yet!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m only twenty-seven!”

“You’re twenty-seven about four times over!”

“Not before I went into cryo.”

Sam’s lips twisted. “Cryo doesn’t excuse that old lingo and those tired-ass moves of yours. I caught you yesterday, listening to that big band bullshit.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the Andrews Sisters and Count Basie’s orchestra. Shut your mouth.”

“I like the Andrews Sisters,” Steve agreed.

“You would,” Sam muttered. “Steve. Tell Barnes that his arm’s not a big deal. Not compared to my wings, and especially since I got an upgrade.”

“I got an upgrade, too. From Stark, no less.”

“That doesn’t make either of you special,” Rhodey chimed in as he munched on his candy.

“I’ve had the same shield for seventy years,” Steve bragged. “Good quality is built to last.”

“Nobody asked you, Rogers.”

“Well, it is.” Steve sipped his milk and clicked on the TV. Bucky and Sam ignored him, and the bird and snowman jokes flew unfettered for the next few minutes, until JARVIS let Nat inside.

“What’s going on? What’s all the hubbub?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Steve smiled up at her, noticing she had her purse on her shoulder and casual civvies on. “What’s up?”

“I’m going shopping for my Halloween costume. Wanna go with?”

“Why not just order something online?” Rhodey wanted to know.

“Where’s the fun in that? I have to go to the pop-up stores and try them on in front of unflattering mirrors, under bad lighting with the rest of the unwashed masses.”

“You really that bored?” Rhodey accused.

“Clint’s out of town,” she explained. “And I want to send him some photos-”

“Nope!” Sam cried, sticking his fingers in his ears.

“Nat. I just _ate._ ” Rhodey crumpled up the Smarties wrapper and threw it at her. She let it bounce off her shoulder and stuck out her tongue at him.

“Well, I’ll go have fun without you.”

“You do that,” Sam suggested. “Besides, I already have my costume all planned out.”

“Ooh,” she asked, eyes brightening. “What are you going as?”

“Him,” he said, nodding at Bucky. “I’m gonna be the Winter Soldier for Halloween. Gonna scare all the kids, just like he does when he doesn’t wear his mask.”

“You’re such an ass,” Bucky tsked, but he was grinning. “Just for that, I’m goin’ as _you_.”

Natasha snorted. 

“This, I’ve got to see,” Rhodes decided.

“Just you wait,” Sam promised. “Mine’s gonna be better than yours.”

“You’re on.” Bucky fist-bumped him. “Best costume as decided on Instagram doesn’t have to buy the beer.”

“That free beer’s gonna taste _so good._ ”

*

The New York Times, the Post, and the Daily Bugle’s photographers jostled with Buzzfeed’s at the Tower’s main entrance. Pepper manned the entrance with Happy and the rest of his security detail, dressed in a Hermione outfit. JARVIS confirmed invitations in the tiny earwhig, and she doled out good natured questions and compliments.

“Gwyneth! Long time, no see! I loved the last pictures you posted of Apple and Moses, they’re getting so big!”

“They really favor you,” Happy added. “They do. Growing like weeds. Hey, take care.”

A-Listers poured in, pausing on the red and gold carpet for pictures. Tony materialized at Pepper’s side, and he gave her hip a little squeeze.

“I’m gonna go mingle and make sure they have my favorite scotch at the bar.”

“Where’s your costume?”

“You’re looking at it.” He pointed to his tee, which read “Genius. Philanthropist. Inventor. Billionaire.”

Pepper sighed. “Really?”

He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “Do you have on garters under that skirt?”

“Tony-”

“You can show me later.”

 

Bruce, Rhodey and Maria remained in the Tower for the whole day, choosing to skip the costumes and grand entrances. Bruce lingered by the punch bowl, free of his lab coat for a change. He speared a chunk of pineapple from his sangria with a toothpick. “Decent turnout,” he mumbled around it.

“Try the Gouda.”

“Ooh.”

“What are you dressed as?” Maria asked.

“Mad scientist. You?”

“Colbie Smulders.”

“Can’t quite see the resemblance.”

“Use your imagination.

“Hey, Steve,” Rhodes called across the room, “where’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”

“Why does everyone ask me where they are? I’m not their babysitters!” he complained as he approached in a costume that… beggared the imagination.

“What. Is. THAT?” Maria’s eyes bugged at the sight of the yellow cape, which she held by its edge between thumb and forefinger.

“Just a look I was playing with. The Dracula’s Closet store called it the ‘Nomad’ suit. Whaddya think?”

“Aren’t you getting a draft?”

“Or a chest cold?” Bruce added.

“It’s. So… tight,” Maria added.

Steve shrugged. “It’s comfy.”

“Comfy,” Bruce murmured incredulously. “Riiiiiiight.”

Maria picked up one of the little souvenir programs from the display table and fanned herself.

Clint and Nat arrived shortly, in coordinating costumes that they all could have predicted.

“Nice wolf costume, Nat,” Steve remarked.

“It itches a little.”

“Barton, red’s your color.”

“Aww, shuddup, Rogers.”

“The basket is a nice touch.”

“It wasn’t big enough to bring Lucky in it,” he told Maria, shrugging. “He wasn’t digging this get-up all that much, either. Spooked him a little.”

“I know, but the cape really brings it home.”

“I told Nat I wanted to be the wolf.”

“I picked that costume first. Therefore, I had dibs, and you get to be Little Red Riding Hood-”

“Big. I’m _Big_ Red Riding Hood.”

“I stand corrected.”

“Where are Bucky and Sam?”

“They’re on their way.” Steve helped himself to the sangria, even though it wouldn’t give him so much as a buzz. He just liked the fruit.

“Sure sounds like a commotion outside.” Maria noticed increased flickering outside the doorway, no doubt from flashbulbs, and the noise level practically doubled. “Oh, wow…”

They worked their way through the crowd, nudging paparazzi aside, and Bruce was the first to find his voice.

“Holy shmoly…!”

“Jesus,” Tony huffed. “This is… okay. This is gonna be all over the Internet. And they’ll think I encouraged it.”

“Call your publicist in the morning,” Pepper shrugged. “Or I will. No worries. Go get yourself a drink, sweetheart.”

Bucky waved to the crowd in a department store knockoff of Sam’s flight vest, eyes hidden behind a garish, red pair of swimming goggles. Anchored to his back were a pair of wings fashioned out of cardboard and decorated in Sharpie pen, scrawled with jagged feathers. He wore a sign hanging from around his neck that read “The Mighty FALCON!” that had a little cartoon bird flapping its wings beside the big, crooked letters.

Sam, not to be put out, motioned to the crowd to get to their feet, making them go wild as he threw muscle poses, letting the lights from the flashbulbs glint off of his left arm, generously wrapped in tin foil and decorated with a large red star cut out from cardboard. 

“So help me,” Bruce murmured. “This is really happening.”

“They went there,” Clint confirmed. “Hey. It wasn’t _me_ this time, right Nat? Right?”

“Right, babe.”

“See? I’m being a good boy.”

“Steve?” Rhodes prodded.

“Yeah?” 

“Go out there and get your boys, for the love of God.”


End file.
